


I wanna hold your hand

by olivebranchesandredwine



Series: I wanna hold your hand [5]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, M/M, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-23 20:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20219578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivebranchesandredwine/pseuds/olivebranchesandredwine
Summary: David, suddenly bashful in a way that he can’t ever remember feeling, purses his lips, at once biting back a smile and trying to hold in all the words threatening to tumble out of his mouth. He holds out a shaky hand.The first time David holds Patrick's hand.





	I wanna hold your hand

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the angst, y'all. But it's happy in the end.

**Hope is a funny thing.**

Like there’s a balloon inside, filling you up and lifting you high. Hope makes you soar toward the sky while it grows inside you, consuming you from within. David has been burned by hope in the past, has felt it bubbling up within him and then been strangled by it.

Hope terrifies David, even as it consumes him.

Each moment with Patrick is like nothing David’s ever known, like nothing he dreamt possible for someone like him. _People who are too much don’t get this, _the thought gnaws at him like a dog worrying a bone_. People like me don’t get the fairy tale._

But each time Patrick takes his hand, each time he kisses David’s knuckles, each time he doesn’t let go…David feels himself wanting to relax into it, to drown himself in the honeyed warmth of hope, to lose himself in the reverie of _what if it works out?_

Each day that Patrick doesn’t leave, the tense knot at the back of David’s throat loosens ever so slightly.

* * *

**Hope is a dangerous thing. **

It makes you careless, stupid; it makes you want to pry your ribcage apart so that you can offer up your heart on a motherfucking platter.

_Hold me._

_Love me._

_Tell me that I’m enough. That I’m not too much._

And when they toss your still-beating heart to the ground as they walk away, hope makes you want to die.

David knows he’s damaged goods, he’s known it for a lifetime. It was just a matter of time for the damage to be too much for Patrick. Because isn’t David always_ too much_?

Four months of Patrick not leaving; four months of Patrick sighing into kisses; four months of taking it slow, and then not so slow, of getting to know each other intimately, both body and soul; four months of Patrick celebrating time spent together; four months of David daring to _hope_ that this was something real.

Patrick has a fiancee. _Had_ a fiancee? _Has _a fiancee. David doesn’t know what to believe anymore. All he knows is that once again, he let himself hope, and once again, he finds himself choking on it.

Four months after Patrick invited him out for a birthday dinner, four months after he first kissed Patrick, four months since they embarked together on something new, David curls up on his side, knees tucked to his chest, arms wrapped around them, making himself as small as he can on an uncomfortable, weathered twin bed, and he cries himself to sleep. 

Four months of daring to hope, and this time, it’s completely broken him.

* * *

**Hope is a beautiful thing.**

When Patrick raises his arms overhead, grinning that zillion-watt smile, David’s heart jumps into his throat. The nightmare of the past week suddenly goes all faded and blurry like a photo background, leaving nothing but the intimate reality of this moment, of the two of them, smiling at each other. David is panting, his heart racing in part from the exertion of his olive branch lip sync, but more from the intensity of Patrick’s smile. His hair is damp; he can feel the sweat dripping from his temples as he looks up at the beautiful, compassionate, generous man sitting before him. For a fleeting moment, David regrets the leather sweater, but then Patrick is down on his knees with David, enveloping him in a searing embrace, and then David isn’t thinking about his outfit anymore. 

_This is it, _David thinks to himself, _this is real. Patrick_ _is mine. _The realization startles David. Nobody has ever been _his _before. And he never realized just how much he had wanted it until Patrick. _Patrick is mine. _David smiles into Patrick’s kiss.

They stay like that for minutes, hours, eons, kneeling on the floor of this place that they’ve built together, their arms entangled, hands pulling themselves closer closer, kisses a mess of lips and tongues and teeth. They stay here until David’s knees remind him that he is not a kid, and the floors are hard. So he oh-so-reluctantly pulls away from Patrick’s mouth, from Patrick’s embrace, placing both hands on Patrick’s shoulders, just enough to find his balance, to place an unsteady foot on the floor, so that he can press himself up onto both feet.

And as he stands there, gazing down at his beloved, darling Patrick—on his knees, his lips kiss-swollen, his cheeks and ears flushed with arousal—grinning up at him, whiskey-brown eyes wide and full of what looks an awful lot like love, David feels his breath hitch, feels his heart pounding in his throat. And suddenly, it’s too much_; _David is looking into the sun and it’s overwhelming and it’s just _too much_; he has to look away. He glances down, overcome with the intensity of the moment.

But David remembers that this is _Patrick _and Patrick is _different. _He carefully, hesitantly brings himself to meet Patrick’s adoring gaze, and suddenly, everything feels right.

David, suddenly bashful in a way that he can’t ever remember feeling, purses his lips, at once biting back a smile and trying to hold in all the words threatening to tumble out of his mouth. He holds out a shaky hand.

Patrick beams up at him, the smile threatening to split his entire face in two. He reaches up, presses his palm to David’s shaking one, and laces their fingers together before rising to stand. Patrick brings David’s hand up to his mouth, brushes his lips across David’s knuckles.

“You still owe me dinner,” he teases, gently, his eyes full of fondness and his own brand of hope.

With that, David can’t hold back the grin anymore; he lets it spread cross his face, feels his dimples pop. This time, _he _brings Patrick’s hand to his lips, presses a gentle kiss to the back of his hand.

“I can do that, Patrick.” He lets their clasped hands fall down between them, but doesn’t let go. He will never let go.

David leads his boyfriend to the door, and they walk hand in hand to the cafe. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shout about SC with me on tumblr or discord, I'm @olivebranchesandredwine everywhere.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] I wanna hold your hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379031) by [olive2pod (olive2read)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olive2read/pseuds/olive2pod)


End file.
